


trip switch

by artyartie



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Hurt No Comfort, Not A Fix-It, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 06:35:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14231436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artyartie/pseuds/artyartie
Summary: So my awful, horrible brain came up with two fics after watching Pacific Rim Uprising. A angsty but ultimately happy ending fix-it......and then this thing which takes everything the sequel did and makes it a thousand hundred million times worse. I make no apologies.Vanessa and Mako get mentions in this story, and hopefully in the next fic they'll get much, much more, because they deserve it.





	trip switch

**Author's Note:**

> 'make a wish and i'll count to three/  
> press the button and we'll both be happy'

Nate’s half-tempted to punch the genius turned evil, alien-possessed genius into unconsciousness, but there’s the whole matter of that Plan B. So he settles for a right hook that knocks the man to the ground and sends the Shao-branded tablet out of his hand.

“What’s Plan B,” Nate growls, resisting the urge to punch Geiszler again.

The scientist licks the blood from his lip, his eyes dark whirlpools that scream the human inhabitant isn’t home. Nate wonders for half a second if there’s anything left of the man before he realizes that he doesn’t particularly care.

“Why should I tell you,” Geiszler says in a mocking sing-song. “It’s not like you’re important. Maybe I’d tell Mako-” He pauses, and Nate thinks maybe there’s a shred of something human, something that feels guilt, but then the man shakes beneath his hands, laughter caustic as Kaiju blue spurting from his mouth. “But I can’t, because I killed her!”

Nate lifts Geiszler only to slam his head against the crowd, and he thinks Jake would forgive him if he killed the possessed man because it was for Mako.

“What is it, you son of a bitch-”

“Who.” Geizler’s voice is thick, muddled, and it’s no longer is own, buzzing like a bad speaker. “The question is ‘Who is Plan B?’”

Nate raises his hands to the scientist’s throat, flexing his fingers, letting the man - or the alien inside the man - know how fast he can go from zero to asphyxiation. “I’ll give you one chance. Who. Is. It.”

Geiszler swallows, and he can feel the muscle ripple beneath his hands. “The other person who drifted with a kaiju. The one who sent your Jaeger into a Siberian death trap. He might fight us but soon enough he’ll fight you.”

Everything starts to go white at the edges of Nate’s vision. The Shatterdome’s comm officer actually sounds thousands of miles away, but even in his shock, Nate is sure the message has been received.

“Apprehend and detain Dr. Gottleib.”

***

The celebration was better the first time they saved the world.

There had been losses, God, had there been losses, but it felt like they meant something. When he thought about Mako, all Hermann felt was a rage at the senselessness of her sacrifice. She should have been here, with Raleigh, in a Jaeger, defending the world from-

-from Newt.

It still hurt, and not just because his throat burned whenever he swallowed and his leg burned from his hip to his toenails. It hurt because his lab partner, his companion in the blue haze of the drift, his friend, had been hijacked by those damn kaiju and it took the world ending for Hermann to notice. All those times he’d brushed off Newt’s extended manic phases, his sudden departure of the PPDC, his fawning over Alice.

The tightness in his throat had nothing and everything to do with the thing in Newt trying to choke him to death.

He clenched his hand tighter around his cane. He wanted Newt here to beat some sense into him and beat the Precursors out of him. He wanted Newt, not the thing that wore him like a cheap suit. He wanted Newt, smile as lopsided as his glasses, drawing him into an embrace that didn’t make his skin crawl. Only one other person alive could hug Hermann like that and he was married to her.

And how many times had Vanessa said, in phone calls, video chats, and the occasional precious letter, that he may as well been married to Newt, too?

It was then Hermann noticed that while his thoughts had gotten louder, the room had gotten quiet. Once jubilant expressions grew dark, hooded, and the revelling crowd had drawn back. 

In its place was a PPDC security officer with a gun raised to his head.

“Doctor Gottleib, I need you to step away from all equipment and put your hands where I can see them.” Hermann didn’t know this guard - he knew fewer and fewer people each year, each day, but even though he didn’t know him, he laughed.

“Is this some kind of joke? Did-” He swallowed, and by Jove, did it still hurt, but at least he kept himself from saying Newt’s name, because this was exactly the sort of thing Newt would have done, before. “Did someone put you up to this? It’s rather unfunny.”

“”I don’t need you asking questions. I need you following directions. Step away from the consoles, put down the cane, and put your hands over your head.” His fingers moved towards the trigger. “Now.”

It was becoming hard to hear the man over the rushing sound in his ears and the rapidly accelerating thump thumping of his heart.”No. Not until you tell me whose orders  you’re acting on,” he said in a voice that is has no business being so calm.

“I said, step away from the-”

“I am one of the few defences we have against the kaijus,” Herman continued, his voice gaining strength. “I just helped save the world-”

“He saved the world once, too. Didn’t seem to stop him from trying to burn it all down.” The officer curled his finger around the trigger. “Don’t think it’ll stop you either.”

“I’m not like him,” Hermann shouted, the veneer of calm finally falling away. “I never drifted alone with a kaiju. I didn’t build those monsters he built. Ask anyone. Ask-” Ask Marshall Pentecost. Ask Herc or Raleigh. Ask Mako.

Ask Newt.

Hermann laughed, bitterly. “Never mind. No one left to ask, it seems,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to let you strip me of my rights and lock me in some hole in the ground on the flimsiest of hunches. I’m not going with you.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor.”

Hermann closes his eyes. He tells Mako he’s sorry, though he may see her again soon. He tells Vanessa he’s sorry, for leaving her with nothing but the lies they’ll tell her. And he tells Newt he’s sorry, for letting it come to this.

And then there was the whitest of lights and the loudest of noises and Hermann Gottleib’s apologies were forever done.

***

They let the human feel the other one’s death. They relished his screams, his tears, his empty threats of vengeance. They mocked him when no one came to console him, or to even asked why he screamed. The reminded him, ceaselessly, of who had condemned the other man to die.

Even if the humans starved their shell of water and nutrients, they found endless sustenance in his pain.

At some time in the future, too long for the human but too short for them, a man entered their cell. The son of the murderer, Pentecost, who had closed the breach. They snarled, not even bothering to keep up the appearance of humanity.

“We are not done. We will not cease until we have your world. We have only begun.”

The other human set his jaw, in a futile measure to appear strong. “No. We took away your Plan B. The next time, we’re taking the fight to you.”

They let Newt’s mouth open and they laugh, loud and long. “How? You had one puny mind on this world who understood the gateways to our world. How do you hope to get to our world without him?” They waited, watching as the other man thought, watching as his eyes filled with horror and dread. 

“But you...you said he was your Plan B.”

“We say many things we don’t mean.” They  smiled and grinned, licked their lips, remembered the taste of blood. 

“Maybe we should have said he was your Plan B.”


End file.
